By; MATTHEW UKACHUNWA, Lagos
Director of Research at Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Professor Stella Smith, has raised alarm over the prevalence and neglect of Helicobacter Pylori (H. Pylori) in Africa, as Nigeria ranked 87.7 – 89.7 per cent of infection.
“In Nigeria”, the Professor of Medical Microbiology declared, “the prevalence of H. Pylori infection varies with Northern Nigeria having more cases than other parts of the country.”
The medical researcher defined H. Pylori as “a Gram-negative bacterium that infects and colonizes the human gut.”
Signs and symptoms of the infection include an ache or burning pain in the stomach (abdomen), stomach pain that may be worse when an infected person’s stomach is empty, nausea, loss of appetite, frequent burping (belching), bloating and unintentional weight loss, Professor Smith enumerated.
“The pathogen has been implicated in different gastric disorders including gastritis, pelptic ulcer disease, gastric mucosa associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma and gastric adenocarcinoma,” Smith explained.
She said that challenges facing H. Pylori research, diagnosis and treatment in Africa include neglect, lack of accurate prevalence data, absence of consensus on diagnosis and treatment.
Other challenges faced in tackling the disease are inadequate healthcare infrastructure, lack of funding as well as straggling number of professionals.
“Helicobacter Pylori infection (HPI) is obviously a neglected disease in Africa. Most other infectious diseases like HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and more recently COVID-19 have more attention in terms of funding and grants,” Smith said.
She showed concern that the burden of the infection in Africa is high with reported prevalence of 70 per cent as at year 2019, adding: “Although this could be higher due to lack of data in some regions of the continent.”
According to her, it has been reported that 50 per cent of the world’s population are infected with H. Pylori with people of different races and regions around the world having varied levels of severity and pathological outcomes.
